


First

by flammabellum



Category: Naruto
Genre: Blood, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-02
Updated: 2015-05-02
Packaged: 2018-03-26 18:46:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,693
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3860656
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flammabellum/pseuds/flammabellum
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is something Madara Uchiha sees with his crimson eyes; this readiness to accept pain he inflicts, as if he is not actually intent on dealing death, but life. He has seen it the moment they had first met in battle, and put it at the back of his mind, but forever noting it, confirming it more and more with every battle the two of them fought as their youth shattered completely in their wake, wounding their ankles with cuts too deep to heal.</p>
            </blockquote>





	First

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written and posted on Tumblr for PikaCheeka, for the first HashiraMadaraHolidays fic swap.

_“The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.”_

                                                – Sun Tzu,  _The Art of War_

–

The fire crackles upon dried logs, and Hikaku Uchiha uses a kunai to poke them about to arrange them. His dark eyes flick upward to the night sky, but there are no stars to see; or rather, faint small globs of white only visible when you do look hard enough. But apart from that, there were no stars at all. This was the night sky as Hikaku Uchiha knew it all of his life – black, bleak, sometimes with the moon, sometimes without. But there were no stars, except for faint small globs of white only visible when you do look hard enough.

Around Hikaku, ghost-gray canvases loom out of the dark – rough and tough canvas tents, the best kinds. He spreads his awareness and chakra signatures of his kin surround him, and there is no oddity in that sea of chakra, nothing out of place. But Hikaku is no sensor.

From the cookfire, he scoops some hot stew into a wooden bowl, gets a pair of chopsticks cleaned. He gets to his feet, goes to the nearest tent within reach, ducks under the flaps without prompting or so much as an indication.

Not that his cousin minded.

Madara Uchiha is lying upon a pallet, in his hand a kunai. He fiddles with the sharp tip with his fingers, and his activated eyes are keen on how the steel makes a dent against his pale skin. Hikaku approaches, sets the bowlful of stew within Madara’s easy reach. Then he potters about, poking at the coal burning in his cousin’s braziers, checking if they still have enough ember to last through the night.

“You’re planning something,” says Hikaku, finding there was no need to turn his head to look at his cousin. These days, nobody could look Madara in the eyes…not with  _that_  loss so close, the wounds it left so fresh. “As your….”  _Cousin? Best friend? Advisor?_ “…I have a right to be informed.”

“Do you believe in the saying that the mind is the greatest trap of all?”

From where he’s rekindling a second brazier, Hikaku is aware that his cousin has at least seated upright and picked up the bowl of food he’d prepared.

“Isn’t it?”

“No,” comes Madara’s reply. “It’s the heart.”

Hikaku doesn’t answer. He lights three incense sticks, and the scent sandalwood permeates the tent.

“Because when you snare the heart,” Madara continues. “Everything else crumbles after it.”

At this, Hikaku does turn. He studies his cousin – the unruly hair, the eyes that have long stopped reflecting any emotion, the hunch. The gloved hands holding the wooden bowl filled to the brim; how the lights cast shadows on Madara’s face.

“What do you intend to do?”

Madara doesn’t even look at him. He raises the bowl to his lips, and sips at the scalding soup.

–

This is the nth ceasefire agreement Hashirama Senju has sent to his (still, despite everything) best friend in the Uchiha camp. There is a resignation in him as Tobirama hands him over the ruined scroll, the paper burned in parts, and blood painted in a great x across letters he’d written himself.  _Stubborn, stubborn, stubborn—_

He puts the scroll aside and passes his hand over his face. Somewhere by his left-hand side Tobirama remains standing, and he knows his brother’s either scowling or raising an eyebrow at him, as if to say,  _do you see this, do you, he’s crazy, that friend you had by the river is lost, he’s dead, why can’t you see—_

Hashirama refuses to see. Hashirama refuses to accept. But most importantly, Hashirama refuses to give up.

“Did you know whose blood he used to paint that scroll red?” says Tobirama, voice hissed through gritted teeth.

“I know,” Hashirama answers in a tone that said,  _it’s enough, I will not hear it._

“It’s a cause for us to break the stalemate and crush them,” Tobirama continues. “The Uchiha are in disarray, you know this. What perfect opportunity now, than to—.”

“Be quiet.”

It was a cousin, older than him and Tobirama. One of the best water release and ice release users of the Senju, and Tobirama’s own mentor. Hashirama knows that Madara simply grabbed the opportunity to make his own younger brother hurt in places kunai cannot reach. If there was one of many things the Uchiha were exceedingly good at, it was picking at wounds and scabs until they deformed and left ugly scars.

“We will not take this sitting down,” continues Tobirama. “An insult, to eliminate emissaries flying the white banner—.”

“We will not,” says Hashirama. “And I will face him myself, alone.”

“Alone.”

“Alone.”

“Why—.”

“ _Alone_.”

–

They both know nothing else than to be this – bloodstained, dirty, plunging blade and slitting throats, and out  _there_  their personalities cease to exist, there is no Madara Uchiha nor Hashirama Senju, just this mindless gore and the need to inflict it on every living creature they could reach, may it be plant or animal caught in the cross-fire. Hashirama has always been the most fortunate – even drunk in the stupor of murder and death, a tiny, tiny part of him remains, questioning everything in spit-fire speed in his boy’s voice, barely remembered and near impossibly recalled.  _Why, why, why, why, why, why, stop, stop, why, why, why, there must be a way out, why, stop, stop, why—_

Hashirama clings to his youth’s litany every time he goes to war, it is his silent ritual before he prepares for battle, as if ward himself from the throes of false glory and honor. There is no such thing for Madara Uchiha; he removes his gloves, scoops up a handful of dirt and rubs it all over his bare hands, this grit, and he wears his gloves again and picks up his weapons, and charges.

Hashirama desperately clings to sanity while he kills.  
Madara loses himself to insanity as he kills.

But when they clash Hashirama has a different set of questions that screams in his mind, in that voice of the ten-year-old betrayed, when his best friend turned his back upon him by that river, where tranquility was put to rest.

_Why did you give up—_

_How could you give up—_

_Why, why, why, why, how, how, how—_

_But I’ve lost brothers too, don’t you see, don’t you see, can’t you understand—_

There is something to Madara Uchiha’s voice screams that attracts Hashirama. That roar that heralds death, it kindles his senses, blazes his chakra, pumps his adrenaline faster, and something unseen pulls at him from inside, and he must scream back even as they exchange blows, blades clashing, shuriken being deflected by the toughened leather of the battle fan.

This is a dance of death, of feet crushing skulls long buried upon bloodied earth, even as Madara’s sleeves flutter. He cries out when blade pierces his shoulder, but this does not stop him; his senses heighten, and he welcomes the pain as if he could drown in it, and he would drown in it, and he would—

This is something Madara Uchiha sees with his crimson eyes; this readiness to accept pain he inflicts, as if he is not actually intent on dealing death, but life. He has seen it the moment they had first met in battle, and put it at the back of his mind, but forever noting it, confirming it more and more with every battle the two of them fought as their youth shattered completely in their wake, wounding their ankles with cuts too deep to heal.

_And now, now, this will serve his purpose, this—_

He does not dodge the root that his Sharingan predicts will pummel him by the torso, shattering his breastplate. The blow knocks the air out of his lungs, dizzies him, even as bits and pieces of his armor shatter in mid-air and scatter like so many rubies, droplets of blood as red as the dying sun. His dark hair whip upward as he falls, even as he coughs and spits blood into the air.

He is down on his back upon the earth, for the countless time. Even when they were but boys, this was a situation he found himself in often, in those clandestine little spars and battles. He’d hated it then. His hatred had not diminished; it made him grind his teeth and clench his jaw, and yet, he knows this must do, for—

The moron dances into it perfectly, and if this were a waltz, it would be the grandest yet.

“You have to stop! Stop! Stop this, Madara!”

Blood drips down onto his mouth, and he could taste that iron tang even as he licks his lips, his eyes blazing, as he snarls and howls and tries to bite a chunk of Hashirama’s face. Battle-fury courses through him entirely, and another scream escapes him; he pushes with all of his might, and his fist lands against that tanned cheek—

Even as Hashirama’s fist collide into his own. Pain is reeling, and Madara Uchiha’s alive.

They exchange blows, wrists bruising, eyelids puffing, blood scattering upon blades of grass. Ribs are kicked and broken, but pain is distant – they have been trained to ignore pain; there is no pain, nothing but the void where battle-fury swallows one whole, and then—the great void.

This excites Hashirama, this struggle, this exchange of snarls, screams, howls, punches and entreaties that fall onto deaf ears. It lights a fire in his loins, that red-black hair spread out under him, that bruise forming against pale cheek, that deep red river staining perfect teeth, and there is a beauty it to it that he wants to claim, that he wants to—

Madara Uchiha’s forehead comes colliding with his own, and blood trickles anew rom the point of impact, and nothing exists in Hashirama’s vision except small explosions of purest white.

_And yet—_

He snarls, rage overcoming his system, and in that split second Hashirama should have seen it coming; should have seen that glint in those devil’s eyes, yet his mind had always been good at ignoring things at the most inopportune of times, and he falls.

He falls completely, helplessly, surely.

Cloth tears asunder between Hashirama’s fingers akin to spiderweb destroyed by a mischievous boy’s hands. His eyes register pale skin, scars, scars, scars, scars even on a neck so fine it shouldn’t even belong to this broken person beneath him. Hashirama claims every inch of exposed skin with teeth, trailing blood and welt, creating new wounds and reopening old, even as one hand break free from his grasp and yanks at his hair so hard, he sees smaller explosions of white behind his lids.

He answers with his own hand closing in around that fine neck, even as he lifts Madara’s head several inches from the ground and slams it down by a flat rock hidden by the grass.

The Uchiha spits blood anew, eyes rolling up into his head, and Hashirama knows this moment is as good as any—

–

White-hot pain seems to burn Madara where the intrusion breaks into his body, racking him inside out. His screams are traded for choking sounds, even as he tries to claw Hashirama’s hand from his neck, the tomoe of his Mangekyo spinning furiously. His chakra is too low to create another genjutsu, even with Izuna’s eyes—

He gasps again, even as Hashirama forces his way inside of him, stretching him painfully, making him arch into the Senju’s body, up, up—

Somewhere, Hashirama releases a groan as he finds himself completely surrounded by that white-hot heat, his cock buried in warm flesh. He’s quickly brought back to reality when Madara spits blood and saliva onto his face, and though the offending gesture makes him release an already bruising neck, it makes him determined to make Madara  _hurt_.

He meets a full-powered Sharingan gaze, knowing well that it’s only for show – both of them are too low on chakra to do any real damage than  _this_  – and with that awareness Hashirama sets on his grind, furious, intimate yet ill-timed and ill-prepared, coarse and rough and uncomfortable to the utmost. He pins Madara down with all of his weight, his hands now occupied to keep the Uchiha’s own out of the way; his breath escaping him in hot, hot puffs.

“All—I wanted—all I wanted— was—was to—was to—!”

Madara does not heed the words, focused as he was with the building heat, the way the angle is all wrong, the pain making him squirm. He clenches in time with each thrust, crying out through a handful of Hashirama’s chocolate hair, eyes blazing even as he does not see in front of him.

Pain ebbs away the moment Hashirama hooks the Uchiha’s right leg over his left elbow, as he buries his face by Madara’s dark hair, inhaling that smoky Katon scent, and this tiny, tiny trace of  _human_  beneath all the blood and sword oil and singed hair and flesh—

“Sh—ah—a—ah! Ah! A-ah–! Ah! Ahh—!”

Madara sinks his teeth into Hashirama’s throat, draws blood that trails down his left cheek, to vanish into the night of his hair. He shifts—grinds his hips against Hashirama’s, meeting that thrust and the next one and the next one after that, determined to get the Senju deeper and deeper still, to hit on that bundle of nerves—

Hashirama’s fingers dig into an exposed hip, the pressure creating new bruises, darkening against his fingertips. Color rises to Madara’s face even as he bites his lower lip, his own arousal trapped between bare skin and the remnants of clothes—

It’s his turn to see white in darkness, as Hashirama touches on that spot deep inside. His lids flutter shut, and the heat of this dance Hashirama focuses more on pulling him hard against him, even as Madara’s hands scramble to find purchase on the Senju’s shoulders and dig furrows anew upon flesh.

The Uchiha tips his head back, tightening around that cock buried in deep—so deep—

Hashirama thrusts faster and faster, sweat beading and mingling with blood on his forehead and temples. He buries his face by the Uchiha’s neck, and Madara’s voice fills his mind and swallows his consciousness as they both topple unceremoniously, painfully, messily into that abyss where borders are disregarded and there’s no Hashirama Senju nor Madara Uchiha, just this burning desire and pleasure, and here, in this infinite existence, they almost,  _almost_ feel peace.

–

Pine.

It is a scent he remembered, loved, hated. It reminds him of fertile land where their own are nothing but gravel and rock; it reminds him of happiness that he couldn’t find. He still hates it.

It’s drizzling, drops of water coming in ones, two’s – and the rain falls, lightning flashes and thunder booms.

And yet they remain where they are, a tangled mess of limbs and half-naked bodies, surrounded by broken armor and abandoned weapon. Chocolate mingles with red-black, and mud and grass. The smell of fire dwindles and dies under the downpour.

It’s Hashirama who ends the silent fight. He pushes himself up on his elbows, searches the bloodied face of the Uchiha beneath him. He’s met with a silent gaze, Sharingan having long since faded into the dark gray pools that he’s known in his boyhood.

He thinks Madara is at his most beautiful broken, with eyes dark gray, rain streaming down and washing away the filth from a face much older than the actual age of the man wearing it, even as problems, despair and loss carved their lines.

He makes their foreheads touch, even as trembling fingers brush against a bruised pale neck.

_And somewhere, in that place that became a void when Hashirama was ten, deep inside it, something comes back to life and beats, as the dry, cracked earth is kissed by the rain and revives, so it does, for him, in this—_

Madara Uchiha does not break his silence.

This is the first victory of many, and the most decisive battle yet.

And this time, he’s won.


End file.
